Syria

The United Nations says it needs a record $13 billion to help an unprecedented 73 million people in 24 countries until the end of the year. A mid-year review of the U.N.’s multi-billion-dollar Humanitarian Appeal 2013 shows needs are increasing and more money is required. In December, the United Nations launched an appeal on behalf of 57 million people in desperate need of help in 24 countries. In just a few short months, the number of people needing help spiked to 73 million. The United Nations attributes this increase to the crisis in Syria as well as the deteriorating situation in countries such as the Central African Republic and Mali.

Last week’s currency crash deepened a steady decline that has helped send prices soaring even for basic foodstuffs and reduced most Syrians’ buying power to a fraction of prewar levels, making it hard even for once-well-off families to afford meat and fish.

Prices of basic goods - such as food and fuel - have been rapidly increasing in Syria, as the local currency continues to depreciate amid the civil war. The Syrian pound has lost 80 per cent of its value since the conflict began more than two years ago. Local businesses and traders have been forced to find new ways to get by.

The World Food Program is quickly running out of food and money for Syria, where millions of displaced people forced to rely on the UN agency for daily meals risk being cut-out of food distribution programs as early as late July, warns the WFP’s top official in the country. (..) “We’ve received approximately 300 million dollars.” the World Food Program’s emergency coordinator for Syria Muhannad Hadi told a press briefing at UN headquarters Tuesday. “We’re still short 700 million.” Hadi says the ongoing lack of funding might force the WFP to further cut back the scope of distribution operations that are already struggling to meet growing needs on the ground.

Prior to the crisis, Syrian society had already suffered from high poverty and unemployment that affected nutrition, education and health care. During the current crisis, this has sharply increased, and the poverty map has changed, where the number of poor and people in need increased in the most disputed and violent areas. (..) Recent reports issued by children’s right organizations indicate that nearly 2 million Syrian children suffer from malnutrition, given the scarcity of some food products and the spoilage of others, and the impact of the situation raging in the country on children’s health in particular — which is deteriorating in an unprecedented way.

Among the half-million refugees who have poured across the border from Syria into Lebanon is a group of people who find themselves doubly displaced. To date, an estimated 55,000 Palestinians have sought sanctuary in Lebanon from the war in Syria, according to the United Nations, most of them descendants of families displaced by the creation of Israel in 1948. (..) Although the number of Palestinians fleeing to Lebanon is relatively small compared with the number of Syrians who have become refugees, their presence here is considered particularly sensitive as sectarian tensions aggravated by the Syrian war rise regionwide.

Like many other Syrians, Fatima has escaped the violence in her country, and now she, her husband and four children are among the close to half a million Syrians that have taken refuge in Jordan. (..) The humanitarian crisis has put Syria at the center of donor attention, with humanitarian aid pouring for the displaced inside and outside the country. WFP has to raise $26 million every week to meet the food needs of people affected by the conflict, said the World Food Program’s Laure Chadraoui.

In the best of times, the solitary well that services this parched border town produced only enough water to let each household run its taps for a few hours a week. That was before civil war broke out in Syria, and before 180,000 thirsty refugees took up residence in a vast city of tents and trailers next door. (..) U.N. relief organizations provide food and shelter for many of the newcomers, but it has fallen mainly to Jordan to supply water for the camps as well as for the legions of Syrians who have taken shelter in Jordanian border towns and in Amman, the capital.

The leaders of the G8 nations are to begin a summit in Northern Ireland, with Syria's conflict set to dominate. (..) The 39th Summit of the Group Of Eight (G8) will be held in Lough Erne, County Fermanagh, on Monday and Tuesday.

The livelihoods of dozens of farmers just outside this small village, in a remote area of Lebanon’s Beka’a Valley near the Syrian border, hang in the balance. Local farmers say many in the no-man’s land between the Syrian and Lebanese frontier posts, known as Mashari El Qaa, have abandoned their farms in recent months, in some cases leaving their equipment and running when they see Syrian rebels approaching. Others have stopped planting because of landmines or reduced their visits to their fields. (..) A recent assessment by FAO of the impact of the Syrian crisis on food security and agricultural livelihoods in neighbouring countries found that it has become extremely difficult for Lebanese farmers to sustain their livelihoods.